Tuesday, July 30, 2013

Weekly Maths Programming

I shared a pic of my Sunday afternoon work on Instagram and on Facebook over the weekend - my maths programming.I was quite chuffed at how many people commented on it - to me it is just my program. And I know a lot of you don't use NSW outcomes or Best Start....but I thought I would share it here as it might give you some ideas of how to adjust your own programming.

Someone asked me how to get started doing something like this - I'm not sure if it was the design on the content, so I'll just comment on the design first. It is simply a table I created in ppt and merged and added cells to where needed. The font is Hello Doodle Print (one of my all time faves from Jen Jones) and the cute shapes to define the groups are from Krista Wallden.

Anyways....moving on to the content.

This is a view of my whole week. The top page is probably my most important page - reporting wise. The categories listed are

Strand - tells what what broad topic it is. This one is Whole Number

Outcomes - Similar to Common Core, these are the statements that drive teaching in NSW. In the next 2 years, we will be moving to objectives similar to the rest of Australia.

Best Start Focus - Best Start is an assessment tool to help teachers of students in K-2 (soon to be K-6) to monitor and assess what their students can do. You are able to place students in clusters in each aspect and the program tells you what they need to be able to do to move to the next cluster.

Key ideas - tells me what I am trying to achieve with the activities in the lesson, for all students

The other boxes have debeloped over time.

Language - I find this one very useful to make a note of the specific language I want my students to be using throughout the lesson

Modelled teaching - I take time at the beginning of every lesson (sometimes at the end!) as well as a small group teacher focussed lesson to do my modeled teaching, focussing on whatever topic each group needs, as determined by Best Start.

Groups

I currently have 5 groups who move through 4 rotations. Some activities are similar but some are very different as different groups need to practice different skills to move through the clusters.

My activities for last week are a bit hard to read but essentially each group moves through 4 stations

Teacher focussed lesson - this week we are looking at (from the lowest groups) teen numbers - as these groups need this skill to move on, and doubles for my higher groups.

Concluding activities - I also find it nice to do a whole class activity and a reflection of the lesson. My current activity we have been doing every day is my Interactive Ten Frame flashcards

Resources needed - I sometimes do a much more detailed list than this to make sure I list everything each activity needs.

Assessment - how am I going to assess the lesson. I usually am jotting notes each lesson, plus I use the reflection the students give me, and any concrete recording such as a sheet or writing on the whileboards.

Evaluation - now I am not going to lie. I suck at evaluating my lessons each week. It is something I know I need to improve on. But the box is there.....